Enhancing Web Accessibility For All in 2023

Web accessibility has become an all-time important factor in how individuals and organizations operate; more than ever before, everyone in the globe should be able to access and interact with websites on the World Wide Web. There is an urgent need to remove all barriers without considering if people have situational disabilities, physical disabilities, socioeconomic restrictions on bandwidth and speed, and other forms of impairments.

The WHO reports that as of December 2022, approximately 1.3 billion people, representing one in six of the global population, experience significant disabilities. Disabilities may vary among individuals; some forms of disabilities may be mild while others are of high potency; web accessibility should be relatively easy for everyone.

People with disabilities want to participate actively in happenings and activities in the modern world, so it becomes imperative that organizations must strive to make their digital assets conform to accessibility guidelines. Even for people without disabilities, web accessibility can still be an issue; sites and tools should be developed without accessibility barriers so that they will not be difficult or impossible for anyone to use.

As a website owner, if people find it difficult or impossible to access your site, you will lose a lot of traffic, and the loss may harm your reputation or lead to churn. The reasons above make the prioritization of web accessibility by organizations crucial for survival.

There are many components to web accessibility, such as authoring tools, websites, web technologies, browsers, and other user agents. Some of these aspects are complex, while others may be easy to comprehend. 

The world's best standard practice for web accessibility is to enhance an automated accessibility tool that will deliver effectiveness and efficiency in a loop; you must aim at the inclusiveness and accessibility of your website to beat the opposition. As the focus is more on web accessibility, organizations are introducing solutions such as EqualWeb, UserWay, and accessiBe to resolve users' problems.

Way Forward   

Some of the solutions organizations are enhancing are the uses of global best practices and AI technology to ensure automation; these measures enable the transformation of web accessibility; when these measures enhance streamlining, they enable accessibility and compliance. In addition, a provider can combine the accessibility interface, a session-based design, and a UI adjustment tool to make accessibility modifications to suit an individual's needs. 

Another enhancement that can improve web accessibility, especially for people with disabilities, is the AI-powered process that enhances page structure, contextual understanding, color desaturation, video captioning, content moderation, accessible fonts, and computer vision. In addition, terminating complex requirements, such as keyboard navigation and optimization for screen readers, makes it relatively easy for people with disabilities to access the web. 

The user experience is critical; you cannot just stop at ensuring accessibility guidance. As a website owner, you must prioritize quality service and satisfaction to people with various degrees of disabilities, including blindness or minor vision impairments, motor impairment such as wheelchair users' concerns, cognitive disorders, seizures such as photosensitive epilepsy, and hearing impairments. 

Any solution that enhances web accessibility must be suitable for anyone, notwithstanding the individual's disability; it must also adhere to WCAG (web content accessibility guidelines) 2.1, usually published by the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AGWG) and worldwide legislation. In the case of accessiBe, as an example, a user can install the access widget in approximately two minutes. 

Within the two minutes installation process, a JavaScript code is pasted into the user's website. Once the installation is done, accessiBe's accessibility interface (widget) appears on the website, and the AI scans and analyzes your content.

AccessiBe ensures that the user's website is accessible and compliant within up to 48 hours; also, every 24 hours, the AI scans for new content and remediates it automatically to ensure it is accessible and compliant.

Your web accessibility tool must prioritize security; you should expect your device to come with world standard certifications such as McAfee Secure certification, Trusted site certification, SHA 512 (512-bit output), Subresource integrity, ON PREM option, ISO 27001 certification; the tool should also be GDPR-compliant.

Even when a user does not have a disability, web accessibility can still be a problem; for instance, the dark mode option is a valuable accessibility feature; you may not consider it a disability, but some people find it painful to view bright colors. In addition, people with dyslexia or Irlen's syndrome will struggle to read black text on a white background if large blocks of white might wash over the black text. 

Developers and designers also derive immense benefits from the dark mode apart from website viewers; colors like light blue are not easy to view; hence the designer must concentrate more carefully on text when there is a light background instead of a dark one. In addition, every designer wants better opportunities to explore design options for their products, which is another benefit you derive from the dark mode. 

The contrast the dark mode offers makes code easily readable and will save developers a lot of money. Web designers and developers have started seeing the significance and importance of having a dark theme mode on their sites for websites using SCSS; sites developed a long time ago, and the new styling options. 

If you want to create a dark mode theme manually, it can be an expensive venture; it's more like trying to redesign your site; accessibility tools have made this task relatively easy; with just a click on your device, you can install the dark mode theme. 

A website should be accessible to everybody, irrespective of whether they suffer disability or not; you can achieve this feat by adequately designing and coding the site. Perceiving, contributing, navigating, interacting, and understanding a website should not be rocket science; it should be seamless. 

Conclusion

Enhancing web accessibility should not be problematic to designers and developers; you are not without the requisite resources; AGWG will cooperate with you and your organization anywhere in the world through the W3C process to develop the WCAG. The organization aims to provide a single shared standard for web content accessibility that will meet the needs of individuals, organizations, and governments globally.

The essence of WCAG is to ensure that web content developers, web authoring tool developers, web accessibility tool developers, and other persons desirous of web accessibility do not lack the relevant resources. Web accessibility should be easy for everyone and not difficult, especially for people with disabilities.